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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996237">Together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Funkspiel/pseuds/Funkspiel'>Funkspiel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drunken Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fate &amp; Destiny, M/M, The Law of Surprise (The Witcher), no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:00:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996237</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Funkspiel/pseuds/Funkspiel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Geralt himself had the beginning of a pleasant buzz beginning to burn throughout his body, numbing his ire toward fate and destiny and village folk who were constantly trying to rip him out of his money for doing jobs no sane man would do. Perhaps Jaskier had been right. He did need a night to drink, to spit in destiny’s face, and be neither father-to-be or witcher, but merely a man in a bar drinking with a friend.</p><p>The evening went on like that – pleasant and mundane and mild – until suddenly it was anything but. Because Jaskier, the bloody bard that he was, just had to make things personal. And in Geralt’s experience, nothing good ever came from getting personal.</p><p>-</p><p>Prompt: Geralt wonders why he can never get rid of Jaskier. One night Jaskier is drunk and telling Geralt stories of his childhood [...] leading to a rather surprising revelation about Fate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1211</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt: Geralt wonders why he can never get rid of Jaskier. One night Jaskier is drunk and telling Geralt stories of his childhood. How his mother was once saved from a monster before he was born. The man took no coin in thanks, only claimed the Law of Surprise. His father died in the attack, and later his mother discovered that she was pregnant with Jaskier. His mother never saw the man again. Jaskier chuckles to himself, not noticing how Geralt has suddenly gone silent and wide-eyed.</p><p>Author's Note: Some of the background of the story changed, but here we go ~ using some of Dandelion's background information as Viscount.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you are meant to be."<br/>
- John Lennon</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier, by the definition of his very personality, was Geralt’s polar opposite; and yet, for a man so utterly unlike the witcher, the bard had an uncanny ability with comfort. That was how Geralt found himself sitting at a bar with company rather than alone. It had been a few months since ‘fate’ had begun to reappear into his life – little tendrils of coincidences and off-hand remarks from various people and events that were constantly reminding him that the clock was ticking. His child surprise was coming for him.</p><p>
  <span>With every warning and every sign of the inevitable, Geralt felt his jaw clench tighter and tighter until a dull pain had rooted into his temples, constant and burning. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone felt the need to tell him what to do; to just give in. Fate was, after-all, unavoidable - or so they insist on telling him. </span>
  <span>But “fate” was a ruse made by weak-willed men who wanted to hide their deeds behind excuses like ‘inevitable’ and such, and Geralt wanted nothing to do with it. There was no such thing as fate, he was definitely not about to take in a child-ward any time soon, and that was all there was to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re grinding again,” Jaskier said easily, slipping back into his spot across the table from Geralt as he slid another full pint toward the man. He gestured at his own jaw with a twirl of a finger and elaborated, “Your teeth,” when Geralt didn’t immediately stop – as if he had merely misunderstood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt pursed his lips with a grunt, took the flagon, and imbibed a hearty sip. He wiped the froth from his lip with the back of his hand and continued looking sour. They had just finished a contract – Jaskier being <em>Jaskier </em>all the while – with a sorceress who had, at the end, tried to 'pay him' by becoming ‘possessed by Fate’ with a capital ‘F’. Reminding him of his duty to his child, of course, <em>how the fuck did everyone know about that</em>. As if this girl, this princess, were his <em>daughter. </em>Geralt felt his jaw tighten again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He blamed Jaskier. There was no doubt in his mind that the man had created some pub shanty about his child-surprise without him knowing about it and even <em>he </em>had the good sense not to sing it around Geralt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier whistled. He was a bit noodlely at the moment. Knowing Geralt as well as he did, it was Jaskier who had insisted they take a load off and wind down at the tavern to celebrate a job well done, a heavier purse, and the fact that they were very much the masters of their own fates, thank you. </span>
  <span>It was the last bit in particular that got Geralt’s interest; not that he had ever been a man opposed to a good drink. </span>
  <span>Jaskier had merely made the point that ‘to drink would be to spit in “fate’s” face, after all – and it brings us no nearer your child surprise, right?' and it was a done deal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they drank. They drank, and Jaskier had done his damnedest to keep up with Geralt out of what the witcher could only assume was some spirit of camaraderie. The idiot. So the bard was rather noodlely and loose. There had been a distinct moment when he had first stood to refresh their cups that Geralt had been certain the bard would collapse. But despite the tilt to his gait, Jaskier had managed – and was, in fact, still remarkably cognizant for a man Geralt had no plan of letting walk again for at least an hour or so.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt himself had the beginning of a pleasant buzz beginning to burn throughout his body, numbing his ire toward fate and destiny and village folk who were constantly trying to rip him out of his money for doing jobs no sane man would do. Perhaps Jaskier had been right. He <em>did </em>need a night to drink, to spit in destiny’s face, and be neither father-to-be or witcher, but merely a man in a bar drinking with a friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He forced himself to loosen his jaw and Jaskier stopped his babbling from across the table with cheer and said, “That’a’boy, Geralt!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They played Gwent; a game that Jaskier’s fingers struggled to keep up with but his mind, surprisingly, had no trouble with at all. Allowing Geralt to put his own mind into a pleasant round of distractions as he kept Jaskier’s frontline from utterly devastating his own with all manner of range and weather cards. When the time came, it was Geralt who refreshed their cups next (and had a private word with the bar keep to perhaps water Jaskier’s down just a little).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The evening went on like that – pleasant and mundane and mild – until suddenly it was anything but. Because Jaskier, the fucking <em>bard </em>that he was, just had to make things <em>personal.</em> And in Geralt’s experience, nothing good ever came from getting personal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honestly, Geralt, I’m on your side with all this fate rubbish,” Jaskier finally said, evidently confident enough in the good turn of mood in the witcher to further discuss the topic. As though the matter were a wet sheet to be aired, dried, folded and finally dealt with. Geralt felt a twitch run through his jaw but the booze by and far helped stop him from setting his teeth to grinding again. He kept his gaze on his cards, hoping his focused expression might spare him from the conversation at hand as he slowly laid down his move and rumbled, “Funny. You seem too romantic to be on my side.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier chuckled, hands fumbling clumsily through his own cards as he smiled and said, “Fair! Very fair. By all counts a master musician and storyteller like myself should be utterly enamored by fate—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—I don’t know if a man who wrote that ‘fishmonger’ nonsense can be considered a ‘master musician’,” Geralt hedged, hoping to distract the bard with his little jab, but Jaskier just merrily continued as though he hadn’t said a word - far too used to the witcher's barbs to let it stop his rhythym. Damn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—but I’ve first-hand experience to tell me otherwise. Fate may be a romantic and beautiful storytelling device, no doubt, but every writer knows all too keenly that fantasies are just fantasies at the end of the day. After all, we wrote’em.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier had a merry little blush about him; it peeked out from under his messy collar and kissed the tips of his ears, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Geralt chalked it up to what he referred lazily to as 'bard magic' that the man managed to look attractive whilst drunk instead of like a slobbering fool – like most humans. It wouldn’t be the first time Geralt wondered if there were something more to the bard than meets the eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's fingers still fumbled like a drunken fool as he played his cards though, so Geralt shook it from his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“First-hand experience?” Geralt snorted, shaking his head when the bard, despite his drunkenness, managed to pull out another great move in their Gwent game – not once thinking that perhaps he <em>too </em>was inebriated in the slightest. “What? Did the woman you deem yourself ‘fated’ to marry reject you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt smirked a little at his own jest, pleased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier let it roll over him with all the candor of a duck shaking water from its feathers, smooth and easy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hardly,” Jaskier laughed, watching Geralt as the man refocused on the game. “Well, I mean, you’re not wrong – Lady Emily was meant to be mine, and the world is a poorer place for her having married that lout Bartolomeo rather than myself – but no. That wasn’t it. You see, I was told ‘fate’ would have a big role in my life as well, witcher. Practically from the day I was born. And it didn’t. So there – same side.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt raised his brows, eyes lifting from his cards to drift up to Jaskier’s face with surprise. That sounded like quite the story and yet the bard didn’t immediately launch into it. Strange.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think that’s the briefest story you’ve ever told. Are you ill?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah!” Jaskier exclaimed, pointing at him as though he had caught the witcher red-handed in some years long investigation, “I knew you liked my stories.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt snorted, played his hand, then leaned back to cross his arms over his chest and stare at the bard menacingly – which was evidently not menacing at all, because the bard just waved him off as his eyes fell to their game and said distractedly, “Honestly, there’s no real story to tell, Geralt, don’t give me that look. Nothing happened - that's the point.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt felt his lips curl the littlest bit downward. Now he was truly beginning to worry the man had been possessed. He even began running through the possibilities of what specific spirit it could be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jaskier.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier blew out a breath that ruffled the fine curls of his bangs – if that was even what they were called, to be honest Geralt didn’t truly know – and rolled his eyes as though <em>Geralt </em>were the one prone to prying and not himself. Good, Geralt thought. Served him right to get a taste of his own medicine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s an old story, not even particularly special. It's happened to others and it just so happened to my father. He was headed home from a gala of some sort – thankfully without my mother – and he and his carriage was attacked. Not even by anything particularly remarkable, by the by, that's how droll this story is. He was traveling through the swamps that led to home, a wheel got stuck in the mud – drowners tried to off’em, you know the way it goes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt felt the uncanny grip of something flipping his stomach upside down and chilling his skin as suddenly a memory slammed to the forefront of his mind, dragged up from the depths of decades, triggered by Jaskier’s words.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt had been on his way back to the village to turn in a contract. He had been sore and tired, the worst of one of his potions slowly ebbing from him. His hair was a filthy, muddy, bloody thing and he looked rather like a monster himself. But the Water Hag was dead – a particularly old and particularly powerful hag at that – and the promise of a heavy purse was on the horizon. Coin and a bath and a bed. The thought alone quickened his steps for a moment.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>But the swamp had been a muggy, dreadful thing. Geralt had resorted to leading Roach by her reins on foot rather than risk her ankles in the mud beneath his weight and that of his pack. He had been taking his time, grumbling now and then about the flies and the mosquitos that dogged him, the heat oppressive and thick.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>He ultimately ended up leaving Roach behind when he heard a man scream up ahead. He slid through the mud in clumsy, fumbling strides only to find a carriage with its wheels stuck, plagued on all sides with drowners. They had taken the man's horse out at the ankles and were dragging it through the mud. Geralt could still remember the panicked whites of its eyes and its shrill screaming – the sense of relief he felt knowing he had left Roach a safe distance behind. Somewhere out in the mud, he saw a gloved hand disappear beneath the mire – likely a travel guard. Dead now.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Help! Oh, you there! Please don’t leave me!” A man had shouted from atop his cart, barely beyond the reach of webbed, grasping claws.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook himself. Tried to focus. Odd for the story to start out similarly, but like Jaskier said, the monsters were as common as the situation. Focus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Way he tells it, it’s quite a tale. It's too bad you're hearing it from me and not him. Man appeared out of nowhere and out of the goodness of his heart, he cut down all the drowners.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>It had been sloppy work, between the mud and the exhaustion. The swamp kept sucking his boots down into the muck, every move slow and squelching, but he managed. He took the head off two before they even noticed his presence – the beasts too lost to tunnel vision and bloodlust to manage much else</span>
    </em>
    <span> – <em>then cleaved the hand off another that reached too close to the man atop the carriage. That drew the beasts’ attention rather quickly.</em></span>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>The fight had left him even filthier. Slathered in guts and swamp gunk and reeds that peaked out of the edges and grooves of his armor in comical places. He leaned himself against the carriage, leaving a great messy smear behind him, and sucked in a breath. The horse was dead, the carriage a lost cause. But the man was alive. Hopefully that would be enough to spare him some random human’s moaning that he hadn’t arrived in time to spare the horse. But it wouldn’t be the first time it hadn't been enough…</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” The man babbled urgently, scrabbling down from the top of his carriage to stand before the witcher. He was a bit of a rotund man – obviously well off – with dark mousey hair, and startlingly cornflower blue eyes. He wore rich fabrics done up in delicate, intricate threading and patterns. The knees of his trousers and ass had been muddied, his hands as well. But he looked rather cheerful for a royal of some sort who had recently taken a tumble through the mud. Most royalty always tended to be sour, even when their lives were saved. Geralt found himself off-balance.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“However can I thank you, Master…?” The man asked, letting the sentence drag pointedly.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Witcher is fine,” Geralt said. People took none-too-kindly to his name these days. Witcher was safer; which in and of itself was a bit tragic.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Master Witcher it is,” the man beamed, and for the life of him Geralt couldn’t fathom how a man managed to smile like that to a complete stranger. Smiling like they were longtime friends reunited after decades of getting old in separate lands, but never forgotten. This was usually the point in which people gave him a suspicious look and yet this man smiled.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <span>“Father said the man wanted nothing. No price, no pay. Honestly, that’s why I think he’s lying. Even you witchers require pay when you help slay monsters. Who possibly would have stepped in on that situation and been willing to walk away after risking their lives for nothing?” Jaskier snorted. It was obvious that this story had once meant quite a deal to him at one point, and slowly – as the years passed – it had lost its glamor like petals falling from a flower one by one until nothing was left but a thin, weathered stalk. Geralt grunted and tried to banish that nagging memory from his mind, to focus on Jaskier's story. He rested his wrists down against the table to steady the subtle shaking of his cards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But more and more, his stomach dropped like a stone. Slipped beneath the surface of icy dread like that traveling guard's hand had disappeared beneath the murk of the swamp.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Honestly, don’t worry about it,” Geralt said. He was exhausted. The man surely had no coin on him of any import and Geralt had no interest in following the man home to then negotiate some fee as all men seemed inclined to do after the work was done and the threat gone. He wanted nothing more than to return to town, burrow into a bed at the tavern, and sleep off the rest of the potion still chewing at the edges of his system. He wanted to wrap up his current contract, not haggle another. He held a hand up to the man when he tried to pull the rings from his fingers and said, “Truly. It was only decent to stop and help. I didn’t even manage to spare your horse or guard—”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Ah, Renfield—” the man said, suddenly sobering. A true sense of somber grief appeared to steal over the man, his eyes casting out to the spot in the swamp where he last saw him. “And to think I don’t even have a body to bring home to his wife…”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to go. He wanted to </span>
    </em>
    <span>sleep.</span>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“See? You owe me nothing,” Geralt offered softly.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“You still saved my life,” the man said, “That is not nothing.”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt clenched his teeth and looked out over the wastes of the swamp. It was obvious the man would not relent. Furthermore, he couldn’t leave the man like this either – alone in the swamps among the carcasses of dead drowners. The witcher sighed, long and heavy through flared nostrils, and finally said, “Walk with me to town and I’ll surely think of something.”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“But father insisted on paying the man,” Jaskier said, a little grin slipping onto his face then as he proudly said, “We’re a bit of a stubborn lot, we of house de Lettenhove.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cornflower blue eyes drifted up to twinkle merrily at Geralt, surely expecting the witcher to sieze the opportunity to agree that, yes, Jaskier was nothing if not bullishly stubborn when he got something into his head. Something like following a witcher around and using those adventures as a muse, for instance.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt was thanking his lucky star by the time they finally stumbled into the village where he needed to turn in his contract. The man – some Viscount from some place Geralt really had no intention of remembering – had managed to fill the silence Geralt so desperately wanted all the way from the moment they left the swamps to the second they stepped into the village. He spoke of why he was traveling with one guard - “Well my wife is pregnant, you see, and I was afraid to leave her alone in her state. She’s due any day now,” – and how they were expecting a wee lass and oh, how he’d tell her about the brave, muddied man who saved him.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt barely stopped himself from burying his face into Roach’s neck when the man clapped him heartily on the back and exclaimed, “And now I owe you furthermore for escorting me to safety! Have you thought of a just reward?”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt felt a groan lodge behind his teeth and just barely managed to smother it. The alderman’s home was </span>
    </em>
    <span>right there. <em>He was so close.</em></span>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <span>Geralt cleared his throat, but his voice still came out like a choked croak when he asked, “And your father wouldn’t take no for an answer, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quite right, witcher-dear,” Jaskier said, finally playing his hand in their gwent game with a drunken flourish; but it felt a bit stale from some reason. In fact, everything about Jaskier felt stale the moment he started telling the story… “I think you’ll find this next bit the most interesting. It’s why I don’t think this child-surprise is anything worth worrying about – all just a load of rubbish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt reached for his pint and took several deep pulls from the thing as though that might drown out what he knew was coming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He invoked the Law of Surprise,” Jaskier said coolly.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“I’ve thought of something,” Geralt said quickly. It was a foolish thing, more romantic than practical, but royals always seemed charmed by the idea. They sometimes asked for it themselves,  often eager to pay slyly through a surprise shipment of silks or a newly whelped hound pup rather than true coin, all beneath the mask of ‘tradition’ rather than greed. Loathe as he was about the law, given it landed him in the School of the Wolf himself, he usually avoided it. But it had its uses - and the man was already <em>expecting </em>his daughter. Nothing ill should come of it. It should work mundanely, perfectly. “Law of Surprise. Are you familiar with it?”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>The man’s eyes opened a little wider with childish wonder and he said, “Why, I thought that was just a myth about you witchers. Do you truly use the Law of Surprise as payment?”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Aye, we do. That seems best, don’t you think? Given the circumstances? I'm afraid this is far as I can take you though... Send a messenger to your estate, have them send a true escort to see you safely home from here. And when you return, whatever you find that you did not expect – that will be my payment.”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“I’m afraid that even for royalty, we live a very plain and humble life. It might be a barrel of wine or a shipment of books—”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Perfect.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“—Quite alright, sir,” Geralt said soothingly, trying to make it sound as though the mystery and tradition were part of the value; anything to make the man agree and free himself to head to the inn as soon as possible. “Whatever you find will be mine, and one day I’ll return to collect.”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Aye… Alright, witcher, you have yourself a deal!” The man said, beaming, as he shook Geralt’s hand without so much as an inch of hesitance about the grime and gunk dried onto Geralt’s hand. “I look forward to seeing you again and paying you properly, friend.”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Again Geralt was struck by the intimacy of the man, the sheer openness of him. He held no ill will for the witcher. Seemed intent on expressing his gratitude genuinely. If Geralt didn’t feel as though he were three steps away from a coma, he might have asked to journey home with the man himself. To get a good meal and a flea-less bed and a decent rest before heading out on the road again.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>As it stood, he had no time, patience or energy for any of that. Instead he clapped the man at his bicep, squeezed, and agreed, “Until next time.”</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>He left the Viscount there to handle his own business with no intention of ever seeing him again. He had no need for books from royalty, more often than not focused on aesthetics than practicality. He had a horse, he had no need for a pup or silk or wine. And thankfully the man had told him more than once about the child his wife was about to birth. No surprises there. Nothing could go wrong, it was an easy out.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Geralt returned to the inn, collected his purse without having to haggle much for their priorly agreed upon sum after the fact – and as he bathed and ate and prepared to rest, he pat himself on the back for managing to slip away from the Viscount who wouldn’t shut up.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt drank until his flagon ran dry, and felt it the moment everything he had chugged hit the bottom of his stomach sickly. He felt pale and clammy. Wide around the eyes and nearly removed from his own body. Jaskier was chuckling lightly, oblivious and self-depreciating with his humor as he said, “Man never returned to find out what he got. I suppose I wasn’t worth the journey back to get me. That’s ‘Fate’ for you. I grew up being told about how ‘Fate’ would bring this muddy stranger into my life. How he’d fetch me, how I’d be part of his life. My father got me tutors to prepare me for that sort of living, you know - adventuring. Medics and survivalists and all manner of men and women, all so I’d be ready for a life at some witcher’s side. I should have hated it… Should have hated the idea of being given away, of having no control in my life, but I was just so damned <em>excited</em>."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's eyes flicked up to catch the expression on the bard's face - soft as he remembered the romantic fantasies of a child picturing a life of wild adventures at some hero's side; eyes distant. Something twisted painfully in Geralt's gut. It should have been a book or a pup or a bottle of wine. Not... this. It shouldn't have hurt anyone. But the Law of Surprise rarely left his life unscathed. He should have known better. The Law of Surprise had made him a witcher. It had tied a young princess' destiny to his own and now - Jaskier had been made victim of it to. The casualty? His childhood and the innocent belief children often had in stories. His sense of worth. Gods above, Geralt had been hurting Jaskier long enough before he ever said a cruel thing to his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt pale. Sickly. Thin and clammy and terrible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I kept waiting though. I wanted it to be true. I yearned for all the details my father never gave: what he looked like, how he acted. My father was so smitten, so blinded by his romanticism, he had barely anything left to describe him by beyond the fact that he was brave, valorous and muddy. But the witcher never came. So aye, Geralt, I’m with you. ‘Fate’ is all a load of horseshit and the only worth it has is to fill my pockets with gold when folk fall for my naive songs about it. Don’t worry. You won’t see that lass if you don’t go looking for her. I'm proof of that. You wouldn't be the first witcher not to show up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he would be. He was. He clung desperately to the knowledge that Viscount had been expecting a daughter. That he had been certain that by his wife's slim frame, they weren't having twins. But even as he tried to convince himself, he knew... Geralt’s eyes slowly drifted over the bard, wide like that dying horse’s eyes had been and just as cornered. He was gripping his cup so tightly it would’ve been shaking if it hadn’t been braced on the table. The witcher </span>
  <span>swallowed, throat dry despite the ale. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man, that Viscount from the swamp… he had been expecting a daughter. Jaskier was definitely not a woman, he knew that firsthand. He covered his mouth with his hand to smother the sound that tried to escape him – strangled and out of control.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Geralt?" Jaskier asked. There was a tightness about the bard's eyes. Something worried for his friend, of course, but also something creeping, something suspicious. Geralt felt naked. "Are you alright? Do you... do you know this story? Do you know the witcher?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt swallowed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he pulled his hand away and deflected, voice a rough croak from the ale and from guilt's claws tearing his throat to ribbons, and said, "You're lucky. When witchers come for their child-surprises and find them to be male, they take the Trial of the Grasses."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier tilted his head at that - words that he was familiar with but Geralt knew the bard had never quite had the balls to ask. Now, well... Geralt couldn't imagine refusing him answers now when he was too cowardly to tell the truth that actually mattered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"As you did?" Jaskier asked. It was a surprisingly tame question, as though his story had drained some sparkle of life from him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes," Geralt admitted, "As I did."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What was it like?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt ached to stand, to refill his cup and be done with this night. He clenched his jaw, all manner of relaxation gone, and said, "It burned everything away."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hope that his mother would return for him. His dreams of becoming a - he didn't even remember anymore. It had dissolved everything from before the trials away to dust. By and far, he was born the day he survived it. Both harder and hollower for it. He was suddenly dizzy with the realization that because he had not known about Jaskier, he had not had to make the decision of what to do with him. Young boys were made into witchers, it was the way of things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But would he have been able to do it, knowing how few survived? How much worse things got if they <em>did.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then "Fate" is a ruse and I'm lucky for it," Jaskier said, raising his glass to Geralt. "No offense, of course."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt obligingly tapped his empty flagon against the bard's, but set it aside to watch the man drink eagerly from his cup. He had never heard the bard sound so... hollow. As though beneath his songs and cheer laid a hole, covered by brush and leaves and full of jagged rocks at the bottom. That was his fault. When would he learn his lesson?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier finished his pint, stood suddenly as though invigorated, and exclaimed, "I think we are both in need of another refill!" Only to wobble rather perilously. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt stood, his own hip connecting painfully with the table, but managed to steady the bard in time to stop him from toppling over. He grimaced at the sting in his hip, slight but annoying, then stilled when Jaskier practically melted into his hold like a maiden swooning. A thin arm wound around his neck, a whisker-less face pressed into the curve of his jaw, and Jaskier murmured, "On second thought," a little weakly into his skin. His breath stank of booze. Geralt wrinkled his nose. He shouldn't have let it go so far. Shouldn't have done a lot of things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Bed," the witcher rumbled, because he was afraid of saying anything else. Afraid of admitting anything else. Afraid of shattering the bard with the truth of it just as the bard had so easily, in one well swoop, shattered him. Fate was real. Between Jaskier and Yennefer and Ciri, there was nothing left in him but weak, exhausted acceptance. It was real and like a cat keen to curl in the lap of dog-lover, Fate followed him with spiteful compassion. Pulling more and more threads into his life until he was nothing but a puppet, tangled in strings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He forced himself to focus on the mundane. The task was arduous - what with Jaskier barely awake and more wet noodle than man - but he managed to get them both upstairs to their room. The witcher took his time. Took the time he hadn't given the bard, but had owed him for so very long. Gods above, it explained so much. How, despite his best efforts, the bard always found a way back to him - smiling and singing. Like sunlight, he always came back. Explained why Geralt didn't <em>try very hard </em>to leave him either. How many times could he have galloped away? Left while the man slept? He should have. For the bard's own safety, he should have, but he never did. He hit him and he sneered and growled; all manner of things to at least drive a sane man away. But Jaskier stayed, fiercely compassionate and loyal, like his namesake. Steadfast and always blooming. Scatter him to the wind and he just came back more stubborn than before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He disrobed him kindly, wary to jostle the bard too much as queasiness began to set in. He brushed the man's hair back from his sweaty brow, hummed gently when his eyes tried to flicker open or when he tried to babble some drunken nonsense. Jaskier whined and moaned and, as expected, reacted to his own drunken state rather dramatically. But Geralt steadily learned what soothed him. Hands in his hair, at his cheek. Soft words, solid and firm like the bedrock of a home. Geralt got him into night clothes, settled him down into the bed. He brought a glass of water to the night stand, then wet a rag to set over the bard's eyes. He was just about to take the chair - guilt gnawing too powerfully at his guts for him to share the bed with his abandoned bard - when Jaskier asked with surprising clarity, "Why didn't he come, Geralt?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt looked at him. He wasn't wholly there, not truly. Jaskier wouldn't remember come morning, he could tell. This was merely the detail his drunken mind had fastened on. So, like a coward, Geralt answered, "Because witchers are fools," knowing the bard couldn't actually hear him. It was as close to sorry as he knew how to say. And it would never be enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night, he stayed awake. He sobered quickly, watching the bard as he slept. Hindsight was a peculiar thing and now, thinking back, he could see so much of his life that he had been blind to before. Epiphanies that begged questions. Did he tolerate Jaskier because it was Fate? Was nothing in his life in his control? What was Fate and what was the purpose or significance of 'will' if Fate existed? Would he have gone to Jaskier, had he known about his child surprise? Did knowing Jaskier's true role in his life now change anything with Ciri? Was he only worth loving if someone was forced to love him, bound by fate?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If anything, it proved only the futility of it all. In avoiding fate, he had only hurt himself, hurt others. What would happen if he embraced it? At the very least, even if it became no less painful, at least he wouldn't be exhausting himself trying to outrun it anymore. That thought wouldn't have driven him to the road out of sheer spite, once. He should leave. He should spit in Fate's face, howl into the winds, claim his life as his own. But when had he ever truly conquered Fate? And looking back... were the things Fate had brought into his life truly so bad?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was tired. Tired of running. Tired of questioning everything. Tired like a dog that had pulling at its lead too long, too hard, wheezing and choking itself. He fell slack in the chair, every muscle letting go all at once, and realized - he wasn't going to run. He had nothing left to give that life. No more energy with which to run and snarl and evade. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You fucking win," he growled, grumpy and bristling; and yet oddly relieved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was circular. Thoughts tumbling one after another, around and around, and Jaskier was the eye of the hurricane -- calm and sleeping in the bed as Geralt watched on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watched the sun rise. Watched the way the warm light of day slowly painted Jaskier's face in creamy golds and sleepy pinks and oranges. He should close the curtains, yet he couldn't pry his eyes away... He did eventually, when Jaskier began to stir. He closed the curtains, slipped down silently to the kitchens, and gave into fate. He ordered a platter of biscuits and sweet jams to help absorb the worst of the alcohol, then breakfast meats and fruits for once Jaskier's stomach settled. He fetched a pitcher of water, pulled a tonic from his pack to help with the inevitable pain, and then returned to the room and waited.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier stirred, as he did in all things, theatrically and lively. He moaned, curled tighter into the sheets, and pressed back oddly - searching for Geralt, he realized with a feeling of being struck. When he found no hard heat at his back, no arms to hold him, the bard's nose crinkled and he peaked open one eye only to whisper a vicious curse. Geralt felt both fondness and dread build in his gut, uncomfortable. He never used to have to deal with emotions like this. Yet he did not entirely wish it away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ger'lt," Jaskier moaned when finally he opened his eyes long enough to catch sight of him, "I've been pois'ned."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt let out a soft huff of a breath, pried himself from his chair, and grabbed the tonic from the bedside to hand to Jaskier with a soft, "Drink."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Never drink ag'in," Jaskier moaned, but eventually obliged with a curled lip when Geralt merely repeated the command more firmly. Geralt forced himself not to laugh when the bard let out a shiver like a cat that accidentally stepped in something wet. "Gods above, Geralt, that's torture in a bottle!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, he was cognizant again. At least there was that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah, sorry," Geralt said, pulling the tray over to place in Jaskier's lap, "Eat. It'll help."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier stilled halfway into reaching for a pastry on instinct, his gaze turning suspicious as he gave Geralt a rumpled stink eye - a look ruined by the messy nest of hair sticking every which way from his head and the crease the pillow had left on his cheek. Soft, so soft - yet he travelled willingly with a witcher.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why are you being so nice?" Jaskier asked, "Who are you and what have you done with Geralt?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm that bad, huh?" Geralt mused, a little sting of guilt buried beneath his amused look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Bad? No. More... distantly aloof," Jaskier said. It appeared as though he had dubbed the food safe enough to eat though - or at the very least the need to steady his stomach outweighed the oddness of the situation - because he grabbed a pastry and with one wary look at the jam, decided to eat it plain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Precisely," Jaskier said pointedly, then after a bite or two he tilted his head a bit, taking Geralt in, and asked, "Are you feeling alright, Geralt? All jests aside, you are... I can't put my finger on it, but you're worrying me. You're more stoic and yet <em>not </em>stoic than usual. Did something happen last night? I'm afraid it's all a bit embarrassingly fuzzy."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was it. His last chance to back out. Something prickled at the back of his neck, something like awareness. Not so much something forcing him forward, or some unintended momentum - merely some instinctual understanding that the time was right, regardless of the outcome. So he sat down on the side of the bed, braced his elbows on his knees, and fastened his eyes to the wall as he forced himself to try something new. He didn't run.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You told me a story."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier snorted and said, "I tell a lot of stories."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aye, you do," Geralt agreed, scratching at his stubble. "Thought I'd return the favor, for once."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh?" Jaskier said. There was moment behind him, no doubt Jaskier settling himself up against the headboard so he might properly listen. Without looking, Geralt could tell the man's eyes were likely twinkling. Excited, eager for Geralt's next story - no doubt already thinking of how he'd craft it into song. Geralt braced himself. His pause seemed to still Jaskier somewhat. Dampen him. That concern was back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Geralt?" Jaskier began, and Geralt took that as his cue: now or never.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Once, a long time ago, I saved a man in a swamp. Drowners, a lot of them. They'd dragged the guy's horse into the mire. Drowned his guard. His carriage was stuck, and he was surrounded, caught atop it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier hadn't caught on yet. He could feel the bard's eyes on him, waiting for the story to pick up, eager for the juicy part. The climax, he called it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I had just finished a contract. I was covered in death, you've seen it before. Unrecognizable. I stopped, I helped as best I could. It was simple - would have been simpler if not for the contract I had just finished. I wanted nothing more to claim my prize for the hag and sleep, but the man insisted on rewarding me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind him, Jaskier stilled. Geralt heard the faintest inhale of breath, how it caught and held in Jaskier's chest. He closed his eyes and forced himself on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Bastard talked the whole way to the village. Non-stop. About his wife. His child-to-be: a daughter. How I was a good man, how he needed to find a way to repay me. I didn't want to haggle and I didn't want to deal with whatever process it would take to fetch his funds. I just wanted to <em>sleep</em>. He wouldn't let it drop, so I invoked the Law of Surprise to get him off my back. I thought it harmless. Wine or a book. Maybe a pup if I was unlucky. He knew his wife was with child, after all. Knew the kid was coming. So it wouldn't be..." His voice cut out with a dry little click. He cleared his throat and said, "I bid him farewell, never looked back. Never found out what surprised him when he got home."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Geralt," Jaskier said - whisper soft and pained, tight like he had been stabbed. Geralt forced himself onward. Maybe this was how he'd evade Fate after all. There was no way Jaskier would want to stay now that he knew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Never came up again... until last night," Geralt finished, hanging his head now, still unable to look. "He told me he was having a daughter, Jaskier."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waited. Waited for Jaskier to slip from the bed, dress, and leave. Seconds hung like hours, weighing on him as heavily as the weight of the years he had left Jaskier to wonder why no one ever came for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They were going to name me Juliana, after my mother's mother," Jaskier said. There was a quietness to his voice, a stillness, that was utterly unlike Jaskier. Not broken so much as tempered like a fine blade - and Geralt waited for it to strike him down and sever the threads that wound them together. "You didn't know... He posted about it on the notice boards for miles."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I went south after that. Didn't return for years. Just... happened that way."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You didn't know," Jaskier repeated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It was you," he said, just as clinically - as though he were reciting from a book rather than truly understanding the words, their meaning. "All this time, it was you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes," Geralt breathed. Waited.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"I found you," </span>
  </em>
  <span>and finally he was back. Jaskier. His words, each pregnant with years of stories and yearnings and waiting that Geralt hadn't been there for, said in a hush through shocked lips. Geralt turned, braced himself for a look of contorted hatred, only to grunt when the man launched himself into his chest. The platter clanged loudly when it hit the floor - pastries and fruit and meat tumbling in all directions. Geralt went still and taut, unable to follow what was happening, off-balance. Shoulders high around his neck, back a rigid line. Jaskier was bent in an odd position, but that didn't stop him from pressing his face into Geralt's neck, fingers winding into fine white hair. <em>"You're real."</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was so similar to how he had drunkenly pressed himself into the witcher, yet now it was real. Jaskier wasn't drunk. He was present. Willful. <em>Hugging </em>him despite the gravity of Geralt's admission. The witcher's brows drew together, confused. Yet even as apprehension stalled his heart and tensed his limbs, the longer the bard pressed into him, threaded his fingers in his hair, the more something in his chest settled. Like it had been floating all this time, and had finally found an anchor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Jaskier, I..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I had hoped it was you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt let out a breath as though it had been punched out of him and couldn't quite figure out how to inhale again. He thought of the man's father - always smiling, so much quicker to offer a positive word than a curse. Open, instantaneously loving. He was holding that man's son. A soul promised to him, tied to his fate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Jaskier."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grimaced. Why couldn't he find the words, <em>any </em>words, for this man who had waited for him for so long? His lip curled, furious and sick of himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I saw you that day in the tavern, sitting alone at the table, and I couldn't look away. I knew that look. I'd had it myself before - wariness of people. You had your stones and I had my fruit, and we were just two kindred spirits no one wanted around, and I hoped... when I saw your eyes, I hoped I wasn't just reading into it. That maybe, just maybe, I had found you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier pulled back, cornflower eyes misty and wet. His cheeks were smudged pink in odd places. Puffy with drink and grief - or was it something else. Something unidentifiable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then the mountain. And Yen, and Ciri. You hated Fate so much, I knew it couldn't be. And gods above, it was easy to hate Fate with you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All this time, <em>Jaskier had known. </em>Somewhere in the fiber of his being, Fate had tied a thread around his heart and willingly Jaskier had followed the call - followed and traveled and suffered scorn and horror - just to wait, and wait, and wait. Nearly three decades of waiting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And I was okay with that," Jaskier said with a sniff, nodding, "Because Fate wasn't real, and at least - if nothing else - it had trained me to survive long enough to do what I wanted to do. To travel with you. I figured that was fortuitous, right? Maybe I was making Fate happen for myself."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then his voice cracked again and that voice - so bold, so full of life - broke and whispered, "But still... I hoped one day you'd look at me and realize I was always yours. But then the mountain, and I-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt cut him off. With one large hand, he cradled the back of Jaskier's neck and brought him close again. He wound his arms a little tighter when he felt the man shiver against him, sucking in quiet sounds that might have been dry sobs. Wheezing, heaving little catches of breath, buried in his shoulder. Jaskier grabbed at his back, wound his fingers into the loose fabric of his dark shirt and <em>clung.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Witchers are fools," he finally said, as close as he could get to sorry. Jaskier let out a wet, messy laugh into the skin of his shoulder and collarbone, and said, "So I've heard."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt blew out a breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What now, Geralt?" Jaskier whispered, too afraid to speak the words into existence, to tempt Fate: <em>will you stay?</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt hummed, felt the force of it in Jaskier's bird bones, and said, "We go get Ciri. Together."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt Jaskier smile into his skin. Felt him clutch his shirt tighter, sink into the circle of his arms as closely as he could. <em>Together</em>. Fate did not seem so daunting now that he could add 'together' to the end of the line. 'Together' wasn't a death sentence, it wasn't a period at the end of the story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the beginning. Finally.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Together.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>had a headache at the end, sorry if it stop s making sense</p></blockquote></div></div>
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